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war, in secret alliance with the Shadows, who had helped him to secure his office.
    Meanwhile, Matthew struggled with his growing distrust of his own government, who insisted that the hybrid ship had never existed. How could they admit the rampaging ship had killed hundreds, when they still searched for enough Shadow tech to build another?
    Galen found Matthew in the mess, eating with several others.
    "Gale! Gale! Gale!"
    The voice came from elsewhere, and as he recognized its source, the accompanying image flashed into his mind's eye, next to that of Matthew.
    Fa.
    She stared directly at him, at the probe in the ring he had given her. She was crying, her breath hitching, her face twisted in distress. Her skin, beneath the curly white wisps of hair, had flushed a deep pink.
    He had programmed the ring to inform him if ever she said his name three times. He had told Fa that if ever she did, he would come to her.
    He had never imagined, then, that he would flee the galaxy. Her head jerked up in response to some distant sound, and she swallowed her sobs. After a moment, her gaze returned to the ring.
    "Gale, I'm afraid," she said in the language of the Soom.
    "Please come."
    She stood and took a few steps, and though the light was dim, he could see she'd been crouched in one comer of her bedroom. She was taller than when he'd last seen her, her nose flatter and wider. She had seen nearly ten cycles of the sun now. She still wore the jumper of a child, though this one was blue rather than her favored orange.
    "A ship fell out of the sky. A bad ship. Everything is gone. Look. Look."
    She turned the ring to face out the window. Where once the neighbor's house had stood, a smoking pit yawned, its sides coated with a black, glassy substance. The fused surface carried the signature of a high-intensity plasma blast at close range. A Shadow ship.
    Galen's heart quickened. As Fa turned the ring, the gray mist revealed only a few ragged remnants of walls among the shining black scorch marks. The town of Lok had been destroyed. He caught a hint of movement in the mist, but that was all he could see before she aimed the ring back at herself.
    "My family they went to Farmer Jae's house. I stayed behind to practice my magic. I don't know if I can find Farmer Jae's house now. I don't know if I can find it."
    Galen accessed the menu of probes on Soom.
    Elric had planted many. More than half no longer functioned, including most of those in the cities. Of those that still did, he selected the one closest to Thin, on a rocky promontory far outside the coastal city. A dusty haze enveloped the lowland. As he increased magnification, he saw in the dim light only scattered dunes and irregular lumps of rubble. Not a building stood, not a survivor moved. The spaceport was distinguishable only by a few puddles of slag. On the far side of the seawall, the water was covered with a layer of dust. The charred remains of the seagoing ships burned as they sank.
    He selected one probe after another, flashing from one scene of desolation to the next. All the other cities were the same: wastelands in which all had been reduced to chaos.
    It would kill Elric.
    Most of the smaller towns had been spared, but not Lok. He searched for a probe still functional in the town, to get a better view of what had happened. The one on Farmer Nee's Jab was still active.
    Nee lived next door to Jae, so Galen might be able to get a view of Farmer Jae's house, discover what had happened to Fa's family. The image appeared in close-up, a scorched stone lying on the ground. As Jab moved, pushing herself forward on low, powerful legs, the view from the probe on her forehead shifted back and forth.
    Galen realized she was circling another smoking ruin. Only a few of the foundational stones remained around the perimeter of a glassy pit. She was looking for something, Galen sensed. The front part of the house appeared to have been hit directly. The glassy pit encompassed that section.